You can submit to Issue #2 of 3rd Gear, which will have a super fancy launch at The Festival of the Photocopier; and to Tofu and Trangias, a vego bicycle touring zine, which will be available also at the Festival of the Photocopier.

In other bike news, I made a denim pouch for aforementioned BFF of No Award Danni. This denim pouch was made out of a pair of Danni’s old jeans (being a cyclist, she goes through jeans very quickly). It’s perfect for cycling in a dress, going to festivals without a bag, and generally looking cool. I’m so chuffed with how this pouch turned out, and it was really simple. Liz is insisting I tell you how to do it, and so:

A little jeans pouch how to

You will need:

A pair of jeans that you or someone near to you has ruined

2 metres of trim

pair of scissors

needle and thread

bling (I will be adding some penguin and shark patches to this pouch)

What to do:

Pick a butt panel. This will form the foundation of the pouch. Cut out the approximate size and shape of the pouch panel, as well as up and along the waistband. Keep the waistband intact, as this is how the pouch attaches (via the button, like a usual pair of jeans). Cut as close to the double seam as you can, as this will minimise your need for hemming, and minimise the fraying. Carefully cut between the top of the zip and the waistband.

From the discarded bits, cut out whole pockets – that is, not the hip pockets, but coin and other butt pocket. Sew these onto the pouch panel. You can choose between cutting off the pockets, or cutting out the pockets (ie, including the internal denim). For strength, I included the entire pocket.

TIPS FOR TRIMMING: Trimming is pretty easy, it’s just the addition of stuff to your hems and borders. You can trim with a variety of techniques and materials, but for this I simply wanted to make the edges neat so I used extra wide bias tape and a running stitch through the thickness of the denim. Trimming has the advantage of acting as a form of hemming, meaning I didn’t have to hem any of the denim I had cut, particularly around the curve of the pouch (ie the butt panel). Lace and ruffles would also work excellently as trim on this pouch. You can skip the trimming if it doesn’t take your fancy, if you’d rather go for a plainer pouch – in which case, just make sure to hem the butt panel part.

One of my goals in life is to not die of heart disease at 51 like my maternal grandmother. On the one hand, she had a lot of other health problems. But so do I, and since my rheumatologist put me on Endep for pain management, I can’t even say, “Well, at least I’m not taking any dodgy first-generation anti-depressants!”

So I am trying to get … fit. Fitter. And it’s going well, thank you for asking! Thanks to my Parkiteer cage, I can cycle to the station 3km from my house and leave my bike locked and covered for the day. And thanks to my Fitbit, I have an incentive to walk 10,000 steps a day, even though that is an arbitrary goal invented by the pedometer industry. I’m basically a pawn of Big Pedometers, but I’m okay with that.

Getting fit(ter) is especially great in spring, with all these bright, sunny, freezing cold mornings. I hopped off the train at North Melbourne today, thinking, “It’s a nice day, I’ll walk from here to the office.”

Then my eye fell on the share bikes.

“They’re just like riding an armchair,” Official Potato Moya told me a couple of years ago. I didn’t know if that was good or bad, but every single bike in that pod had a helmet.

Here in Melbourne it’s raining, it’s gross, it’s easy not to cycle. Steph didn’t cycle today because it just all seemed a bit much. But winter riding is GREAT. Team No Award is all about the cycling. So here Steph, along with BFF Danni, bring you practical tips and suggestions for winter cycling. They commute all winter! (Yesterday they got more wet than expected, but it was still great)

Registration doesn’t pay for roads, it pays for insurance when you hit someone, which statistically you will (our insurance scheme in Victoria is actually quite good). It’s really very hard to kill someone running into them with a bike, it’s a lot like running into them really fast with your legs. I bought insurance anyway, because I’m a responsible adult.

I know you’re in a rush, and how if you weren’t stuck in traffic you’d be there by now. Instead of getting aggressive consider riding a bike.

I’m also sorry about the time I didn’t stop in time and clipped the back of your car when you pulled out without a lot of notice. However if I’d been a car you’d cut up there would have been actual property damage.

Cycle tourists contribute five times more money to local economies than other domestic tourists in Australia because they can’t bring all their stuff and have to buy it all locally. So try not to buzz me when you’re going at 100km on a poorly serviced highway.

No, I can’t go faster; why don’t you go slower?

no award staff writer danni on the roads (also allowed)

Reasons why I, a cyclist, just dinged my bell at you

It is dark, and you are wearing black.

There are limited street lights.

You’re in the bike lane and you’re an almost completely invisible bike/pedestrian/skateboarder/wheelchairer.